Abstract
In the mid-1870s, Robert Crawshay started a now-forgotten contest designed to promote the development of direct life-size photography in Britain and the advent of a more objective photographic portrait. The contest saw much enthusiasm and many entries, but, as this article argues, ultimately ended up setting back the very causes it sought to advance. The competition shone a spotlight on problems with focus, tone, and especially scale when it came to the ‘life-size’ direct portrait, and it managed to promote the role of subjectivity and the superiority of enlargement instead of its preferred ends.
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